Mexico’s leftist leader sworn in as legitimate president after losing elections

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist leader that officially lost July 2 presidential election in Mexico, was declared “legitimate president” of the Latin American country on Monday by thousands of supporters that filled the capital’s main square. Lopez Obrador’s supporters want to revive their campaign to probe that the election was rigged and to prevent conservative president-elect Felipe Calderon from running the country from December 1.

"I swear to honor and fulfill the constitution as legimitate president," Lopez Obrador said, as Rosario Ibarra, a human rights leader and senator from Lopez Obrador's left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, placed the red-green-and-white presidential sash across his shoulders. In a short speech, Lopez Obrador committed himself to protect the property and the sovereignty of the Mexican people.

According to observers, the huge demonstration does not have legal weight, but it is a considerable political confirmation that Lopez Obrador’s bid to force a new vote is still popular among millions of Mexicans that feel that their voice was not taken into account by the country’s authorities. In July 2 ruling party conservative Felipe Calderon won the July 2 election by a razor-thin margin –0.56%- and Mexico's top election court threw out Lopez Obrador's claims of massive fraud.

Since then, Lopez Obrador’s Party of the Democratic Revolution militants crippled central Mexico city as harassed incumbent President Vicente Fox to deliver speeches and carry on with his normal duties. Protesters seized squares, blocked official buildings and camped in city squares as part of the pacific civil disobedience campaign fuelled by Mr. Lopez Obrador.

"He knows that he didn't win, that he is the product of an electoral fraud. That can not give him peace of mind. No matter how cynical he is, he can not feel secure," Lopez Obrador said in an interview in the La Jornada newspaper on Monday. "Calderon is the lowly servant of the white-collar criminals."

Lopez Obrador plans to run a parallel government and mobilize his supporters to prevent Calderon from taking office in the Chamber of Deputies on December 1.